kelticheart
Charter Member
Hi everybody and Rami,
attached a couple of shots about where I am at with the Italian sceneries.
The Po river is now crossed by the most important bridges from the province of Alessandria to Ferrara, almost at the river delta on the Adriatic Sea. Bridges went under relentless tactical attacks, particularly in the second half of 1944, together with railroads and marshalling yards to disrupt any possible military traffic behind the Whermacht back.
Most of them were destroyed or severely damaged by the beginning of 1945 and the Po river was such a formidable natural obstacle that panic spread among the retreating Whermacht troops at the beginning of the Allied push to end the war by mid-April 1945.
Every year spring rains, always extremely abundant in this part of the country, added to snow melting on the Alps create a fearsome picture with the river running real fast and the water reaching almost the top of the artificial banks, that I assure you are quite high. It's like that even today, after an extremely rainy February and the water colour looks like a cup of white coffee. Fall and spring Po river floods are all but uncommon.
Winter of 1944-45 in Northern Italy saw severe snowfalls and a very rainy early spring. The Po river was filled to the brim, the front line collapsed on April 23rd, while the partisan high command called for a general upraise on April 25th. I heard atrocious accounts of panicked German soldiers fleeing the advancing Allied divisions and trying to cross the river even on top of hay bales, only to drown in a few minutes in the freezing strong stream, their corpses littering the river delta a couple of days later.
The first picture shows my final update of Piacenza-San Damiano airbase. The second one a near-miss hit on the Po river bridge between the provinces of Pavia and Alessandria, where I damaged one of the pylons.....darn'! Next time I'll get it!
Cheers!
KH
attached a couple of shots about where I am at with the Italian sceneries.
The Po river is now crossed by the most important bridges from the province of Alessandria to Ferrara, almost at the river delta on the Adriatic Sea. Bridges went under relentless tactical attacks, particularly in the second half of 1944, together with railroads and marshalling yards to disrupt any possible military traffic behind the Whermacht back.
Most of them were destroyed or severely damaged by the beginning of 1945 and the Po river was such a formidable natural obstacle that panic spread among the retreating Whermacht troops at the beginning of the Allied push to end the war by mid-April 1945.
Every year spring rains, always extremely abundant in this part of the country, added to snow melting on the Alps create a fearsome picture with the river running real fast and the water reaching almost the top of the artificial banks, that I assure you are quite high. It's like that even today, after an extremely rainy February and the water colour looks like a cup of white coffee. Fall and spring Po river floods are all but uncommon.
Winter of 1944-45 in Northern Italy saw severe snowfalls and a very rainy early spring. The Po river was filled to the brim, the front line collapsed on April 23rd, while the partisan high command called for a general upraise on April 25th. I heard atrocious accounts of panicked German soldiers fleeing the advancing Allied divisions and trying to cross the river even on top of hay bales, only to drown in a few minutes in the freezing strong stream, their corpses littering the river delta a couple of days later.
The first picture shows my final update of Piacenza-San Damiano airbase. The second one a near-miss hit on the Po river bridge between the provinces of Pavia and Alessandria, where I damaged one of the pylons.....darn'! Next time I'll get it!
Cheers!
KH
I'll upload it in a whole pack. For the time being I am just offering something to try out.